The Family Gathering (Sullivan's Crossing #3)(25)

He felt like his throat ached in want of tears for four straight years. He’d remained mostly friendless and ashamed. And he was so angry.

And then he found his escape. In the military he was able to have his new beginning, spending the power of his anger on his physical performance. He became the Army’s shining star and he was opened to a whole new world of friends. He might’ve been the only soldier he knew with a schizophrenic father but there were plenty of men and women escaping painful childhoods of poverty, abuse, homelessness and unhappy and disjointed families. He had taken comfort in their existence, feeling for once he was not the only one, the only square peg in a round hole.

There were women. Finally, there were women. In fact, most of them seemed honored to be noticed by him. He wasn’t sure how he had gone from being the local town fool to the resident McHottie. He kept looking in the mirror and seeing the same long face, large teeth, bushy brows, nose with a bump that he found slightly too big, and yet the girls were suddenly breathless and eager. He even met a few who lasted, who he thought he might one day settle down with, who wrote or Skyped with him every day while he was deployed. There were also a few military women he spent time with here and there. It wasn’t unusual to have a girl back in the States and a girl on deployment. It was just the way of the world, he thought.

Until he fell in love. That brought the whole world into focus for him. Colors became brighter, music held special meaning, words of love were not silly but profound. He’d taken a short gig as a recruiter near a university because it would give him a chance to pick up some credits toward his master’s degree without being interrupted by deployment. He heard a speaker at the university who knocked him out. She was lecturing on human rights, and the second he saw her, heard her, he went into a trance. She was stunningly beautiful and brilliant. After the class broke up he approached her, stupid with lust and cunning, and said, “I’m an Army Ranger and I’ve been to most of the places you were talking about. Would you like to get a drink sometime and talk?”

She smiled and said, “What about food? Italian?”

“That would be perfect,” he said.

Their connection was instant; their chemistry was powerful. He was a goner. They even had a great deal in common, given he had spent a large amount of his time in the Middle East and that was her humanitarian focus. It was perfect and, on a university campus, just another romance. To the students and professors, there was nothing unusual about them. He could almost forget that in the world at large they might be misunderstood.

Hasnaa was a Sunni Muslim; her parents immigrated from Jordan before she was born. She was finishing her PhD in international human rights, had worked as an interpreter for the UN and been in the peace corps. She wanted to dedicate her life to alleviating human suffering and raising the stature of women wherever she could. She sometimes wore a hijab. When he met her, her head was uncovered or he wouldn’t have offered to buy her a drink. On their first date she wore her hair free. She rarely wore a black scarf when she covered up, as she favored colors, particularly pastels. She explained to him the way she grew up. Her mother taught her that the hijab symbolized modesty and respect for their religion. Hasnaa honored the religion of her family even if she didn’t practice strictly. She covered her head when she visited her parents, who lived in Los Angeles, when she worked alongside a male colleague who was Muslim, when she went to the mosque. But Hasnaa had her own interpretation of Islam, much to her parents’ dismay. She had obviously pursued her education, worked and earned money, which she kept, and she refused to have an arranged marriage. It set her at odds with her parents for years. Then she introduced them to Dakota. Her parents, remarkably, did not die on the spot, but they were less than thrilled.

The passion between them was quick and hot and Dakota was consumed by it. At first he had trouble reconciling her Western ways, especially when seeing her wear the hijab, but he soon learned Muslim women were as individual as any others. She was a brilliant feminist, of course. He warned her that her parents would not approve of him; they would naturally prefer she accept a Muslim husband. She laughed wildly at that, asking him where she was supposed to find a Muslim man who would accept her as she was, so independent and demanding.

He told her he was in love with her before two months had passed. They began to discuss the challenges they’d face as a couple and how they were willing to find a way to bridge their diverse cultures. “Will your parents accept me?” she asked him. He had laughed before telling her about his father. “He could as easily take you for Abraham Lincoln as a Muslim woman.”

Her mother could not hide that she liked Dakota, but there was no question her father did not. Nothing mattered. In his thirty years, Dakota had never felt that kind of completeness. After being together just a few months, he would have walked through fire for her.

Then there was an attack. An act of terror.

She’d been in London at a meeting and had gone to dinner with a few colleagues afterward. Their restaurant had been targeted by a lone-wolf terrorist who drove his bomb-laden vehicle over the sidewalk and into the restaurant. Eleven people died and many were injured. His beloved Hasnaa was lost.

And so was Dakota.

Hasnaa’s mother called to tell him the terrible news but he’d already heard from one of her colleagues. She was buried by her family in a sacred place and the prayers were offered in the Islamic tradition, but because Hasnaa had so many friends and colleagues who were not Muslim, her mother opened her home to them so they could gather and comfort each other.